The temptations of being abroad

Oscar Wilde was not alone in being able to resist anything but temptation. And if the sanctions that normally apply, whether legal or social, are absent then clearly there is a greater opportunity to party on, so to speak. This paper shows how the gambling behaviour of tourists depends on the legality of gambling in the home country.

When the Cat's Away, the Mice Will Play: Gambling Behaviour of Visitors in Australia Bin Dong, Benno Torgler
What happens if national legal laws or enforcements and social norms are no longer able to directly regulate individual behaviour? According to our knowledge, not much empirical evidence has emerged answering such a seemingly simple question. The challenge is to distinguish between the effects of social norm and of legal enforcement. One way to explore such a question in an almost natural quasi-experimental setting is to focus on tourists’ behaviour. Tourists are visiting another country for a relatively short period of time and are acting in a different (legal) environment where formal and informal rules are different to those found in their own country. Using data from Australia we focus on gambling activities since these are prohibited in some countries. We find that tourists from countries where gambling is prohibited spend a significantly larger share of their entertainment expenditure on gambling than those who come from countries where it is legalized.

http://www.crema-research.ch/papers/2010-05.pdf

Rats play the odds in gambling task

Rats are able to play the odds in a "gambling task" designed by scientists to test the biology of addiction.

In the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers describe how the rodents developed a "strategy" in a timed task where they make choices to earn treats. The rodents avoided high-reward options because these carried high risks of punishment - their sugar pellet supply being cut off for a period.

To further test their model, the team looked at how the rats' performance was affected by drugs that altered levels of two neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin.

These are signalling chemicals in the brain that are both thought to play an important role in addiction.

Researchers hope to develop treatments for "pathological gambling"

The rats were given a drug that reduced the amount of serotonin circulating in their brains. This impaired their ability to make good decisions, and to successfully play the odds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8105963.stm

Binge eating, problem drinking, and pathological gambling: Linking behavior to shared traits and social learning

Abstract
Varied definitions of the construct impulsivity may account for inconsistencies in studies that examine its relationship to bulimic symptoms, pathological gambling, and alcohol abuse. We examined the influence of urgency, sensation seeking, lack of planning, and lack of persistence on these three addictive behavior patterns in 246 college students. In structural equation modeling analyses that included all four constructs, only urgency, defined as the tendency to act rashly when distressed, explained significant variance in symptom level for each of the three addictive behaviors. Sensation seeking related to frequency of gambling and drinking, but not to symptoms of abuse. Additionally, behavior specific expectancies moderated the effect of urgency on gambling for men and binge eating for women. Urgency may influence vulnerability to many types of addictive behaviors. However, whether or not individuals engage in drinking, gambling, or binge eating may be influenced by behavior specific expectancies.

Urgency may be a useful concept in the examination of suicide also. From a superficial examination of the concept it appears to include relevant factors (e.g. impulsivity, low mood, myopia, aggression).

Fischer et al. (In press)